Victim of Japan dies at age 97

Dec 06,2018

An elderly Korean victim of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery died at age 97 on Wednesday, a foundation for the “comfort women” said.

Kim Sun-ok passed away at 9:05 a.m. due to deteriorating health, according to the House of Sharing, a facility dedicated to helping those who were forced into sexual slavery by Japan’s military during World War II, in the city of Gwangju, Gyeonggi. Her death puts the number of surviving victims at 26 out of the 240 officially registered with the Korean government.

At the age of 20, Kim was forced to work in a military brothel in Heilongjiang Province, northeastern China, after the Japanese authorities tricked her into believing that she could work at a factory. Following the liberation of Korea from Japanese colonial rule in 1945, she married a Chinese man and settled in the town of Dongning in Heilongjiang. Helped by her supporters and the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family in Korea, Kim regained her Korean citizenship in 2005 before returning home and joining the House of Sharing.

Historians estimate that up to 200,000 women, mostly from Korea, were forced to work in front-line brothels for Japanese troops during World War II.